> This means what each of us can gather whatever standards they
> consider a standard to them or whatever other convention they
> suggest is considered for comparison/evaluation
Hi Paola,
Just for clarification, I was not suggesting we accept interpretive
definitions of an 'EM standard' by members of this group, many of whom I
believe are IT professionals working in support of this initiative. I'm not
sure how many EM domain professionals and practitioners we have. I am
certainly keen to promote the need to include standards recognised as such
by the domain itself as necessary for incorporation into an emergency
management ontology.
Eg: ISO 7731 describes the requirements for auditory danger signals in a
structural emergency. ISO 8201 describes the internationally agreed signal
that unequivocally means "evacuate immediately". Elements of these standards
are not open to interpretation; they are globally accepted to the extent
they impact on international trade (manufacturers of emergency alert systems
cannot export or have imported any devices that fails to meet the ISO
standard).
These, many other ISO's and adopted standards (systems and languages
accepted by EM orgs globally and incorporated into local standards in the
manner the language of ICS became componentry of NIIMS and AIIMS) actually
form the base of emergency management doctrine.
My concern is that as a group we may lack the resources to properly identify
and where necessary seek and gain approval to use all these standards.
Further, that personal preference and affiliation may impact on the
weighting given to certain standards. This is a great initiative with
enormous potential, however an initiative that also has potential to inhibit
emergency relief efforts if by omission it poses as authoritative yet fails
to incorporate vital elements. There is significant responsibility
associated with this endeavour (fortunately no different to most other EM
undertakings where the identification and management of risk is
fundamental).
For my part I will try and collate as many recognised standards as I can and
post them here for inclusion into whatever directory is deemed most
appropriate. I also agree with other posters that the real challenge
commences once we attempt to correlate and map elements of all the various
standards.
Best regards,
Don Cameron
-----Original Message-----
From: public-xg-eiif-request@w3.org [mailto:public-xg-eiif-request@w3.org]
On Behalf Of paola.dimaio@gmail.com
Sent: Sunday, 24 February 2008 8:31 PM
To: humanitarian-ict@yahoogroups.com
Cc: public-xg-eiif
Subject: Re: FW: EM Standards List
hi Don and all
apologies for late intro to this incubator list, been swamped on other
fronts
I am an information systems analyst, designer and consultant, with an
interest in open source and online collaboration. I have been studying FOSS
in relation to EM since 2005, and have been keen to see progress in this
area since I realized the lack of compatible data formats is the biggest
stumbling block to information integration/aggregation during emergencies,
and the lack of information architecture is partly responsible for the
weaknesses and lack of adoption of some FOSS software (bla bla bla) two
links referenced below
I very much look forward to be working on a public recommendation for
future adoption
My question to this group - how do we incorporate all the practiced,
recognised, accredited proprietary EM standards into this
initiative? -
Should we be approaching FEMA, EMA, JICA, CFA, MCDEM, IAAI etc. for
permission to interrogate and use their EM standards, languages and
systems?
If so who will undertake this task?
Don I think we already discussed this (somewhere, sometime) each member of
the workgroup will elicit the information based on their proximity (either
geographical, or disciplinary) to the information source This means what
each of us can gather whatever standards they consider a standard to them or
whatever other convention they suggest is considered for
comparison/evaluation We can periodically review the inputs and decide what
to do next accordingly...
whatdyathink
Best, Paola Di Maio
early contributions on this topic on the list below
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/humanitarian-ict/
some thoughts from last year
opensource.mit.edu/papers/TOWARDS_AN_OPEN_ONTOLOGY_FOR_ER.pdf -
--
Paola Di Maio
School of IT
www.mfu.ac.th
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